Sigh.....

[Jonathan Lighter]

Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, says "Crikey !" all the time. Some people need to watch more Animal Planet.

JL



Michael McKernan <mckernan at LOCALNET.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Michael McKernan
Subject: Re: Sigh.....
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Patty Davies wrote:

>
>That is a good question. When I read it, I thought the exclamatory word
>used in the same context would be 'criminy'. I have relatives all from
>Minnesota who would have used 'criminy' after the first sentence I am
>sure. But, I've never actually heard 'crikey' before.

In my experience, both 'criminy' and 'crikey' (along with 'cracky,' which I
believe was used by many screenwriters/actors trying to come up with a
country/cowboy expression) are all 'by-' words. Somewhere, I heard a great
explanation of 'by-' words by an old-time Vermonter, who was able to list a
long string of by-words idiosyncratically used by various individuals in
his community. All of the examples above, in this scenario, were used by
people who were avoiding profanity, reshaping 'by-Christ,' so that they
weren't 'using the Lord's name in vain.' 'By gum,' etc., used the same
strategy to avoid using 'God.' Local variations apparently were endless,
and some individuals may have gained status viz a viz their peer group for
creative or aesthetically-appealing by-words, much as some people accord
status to a fluent speaker of actual profanity.

Use without the 'by-' now seems to be more common that the supposedly
original form. Cripes! By and by, there'll be no more by- and by-.

Michael McKernan


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